Judges can only set
conditions of release for two constitutionally valid purposes – court appearance
and public safety. Now, since the kid turned himself in, we have to assume he
wasn’t the biggest flight risk, so what about public safety? Well, the problem
with public safety is that in virtually every state, Maryland included, you either can’t
forfeit a financial condition for new crimes or the law allows a surety to be
exonerated from any forfeiture so long as the defendant is in custody. Setting
money for public safety when you don’t lose the money for breaches in public
safety is irrational, and thus likely unlawful under multiple theories of law
that require, at a minimum, rationality by the government. Moreover, after
decades of research, we have never shown any link between money on a bail bond
and public safety. Quite simply, money won’t keep you safe.

So why $500,000? Was it to
punish the kid? If so, it was unconstitutional. Was it to teach him or others a
lesson? If so, it was unconstitutional. Was it to keep him in jail? If so, it
was unconstitutional. Was he given any kind of a decent due process hearing before
being detained through an unattainable release condition? If not, it was
unconstitutional.

Which raises the important
question; what do we do when judges violate the law? We’re pretty keen on
making sure everyone else pays when they violate the law. For example, this kid
faces life in prison for breaking that windshield. But what about the judge? Is
it too much to ask that judges simply follow the United States Constitution? And what should we do when they don’t?

About Me

Hello everyone! I'm a criminal justice system analyst with 25 years of legal experience. I was editor-in-chief of the law journal in law school, and I worked as a law clerk to a federal appellate judge right after graduation. I then worked in private practice for several years in Washington DC before I came back to Colorado, where I became interested in criminal justice. I worked for both the state and federal courts of appeals as a staff attorney doing criminal appeals, and I also taught at Washburn Law School for a year before I got involved in the local criminal justice system issues in Jefferson County, Colorado. In that job I quickly realized that there was a lot of room for criminal justice reform, and that's what I've been doing ever since.

For the past several years I've been working on reforming America's traditional system of administering bail. Believe me, it really needs it. I started this blog because I was getting somewhat fed up with all of the slanted misinformation and self-serving research and analyses circulated in the field. This is my little way of chiming in.

I think I've had plenty of formal education, and I hope I'm not forced to get any more (although I'm taking two classes on Coursera!). I have a law degree, a masters of law degree, and a masters of criminal justice degree in addition to the two degrees that I got in college.

I am currently the Executive Director of a Colorado nonprofit called the Center for Legal and Evidence-Based Practices. It serves as my platform for performing neutral and objective research and analysis of topics relating to bail and pretrial justice. I hope that you'll get something out of this blog, which will undoubtedly contain a few things you aren't likely to find anywhere else.